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On a day like today, I could not go to sleep without first opening a beer and spend some time doing these two things that I love: thinking and writing.
I think, about earlier experiences and the significance that the individual and collective action of people can have. I write, in memory and in honour of you, Steve, that have left us like orphans: all of us those who, directly or indirectly, have been your pupils.

I remember the day I met Nereo Garbin. We had arranged to meet at the offices of the Instituto de la Cerveza Artesana (ICA - Institute of Craft Beer) in the neighbourhood of Poble Sec, also with Daniel Fermun, whom I had previously met in Madrid, at the extinct pub Animal Picar & Beer. We had a long talk in which we could know each other, exchange views on the local beer scene and drink some beers. They told me about their long career in the brewing industry and their future projects. They showed me a black, greasy store in the basement of the same building, in which a car workshop had operated in the past, and where they planned to locate their brewery. "Lots of work ahead!", I thought.

"Abirradero is the retail extension of ICA, with 40 rotating beer taps and a well-equipped kitchen"

I still hadn't had the chance to get myself any beer from the rising scene in Northern Ireland. It was the same person who had enthusiastically told me about what was beggining to happen up there, fellow blogger Steve Lamond, who at the last edition of the European Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference in Brussels brought me three bottles from a young cooperative microbrewery based in Belfast: Boundary Brewing.

"For five years, the brewing scene has exponentially been growing, with more than twenty breweries today"﻿

"Craft beer is about people. Craft beer is about culture. Craft beer is about exchange of ideas"
These were the words that Kjetil Jikiun pronounced in his intervention at the official video of the Barcelona Beer Festival 2012. A true declaration of principles. I had no chance to talk to him in that distant first edition of the festival, but we could engage in small conversation at a presentation in BierCab, around two years ago. Those who knew him personally had already told me so, and it was exactly what I felt: a cordial and extremely humble person, willing to share every single detail about his beers, while showing kindness and self-confidence with his words and gesture.